The Anti-Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers

U.S. Congress

Saturday, July 09, 2011

Due to the fact that the mainstream media in the United States of America has abdicated its responsibility to keep the public informed on issues vital to the nation, most citizens have remained thus far totally in the dark concerning the continually-developing scandal at the ATF--the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The scandal in a nutshell is that the Obama Administration engaged in an illegal scheme to place U.S. guns in the hands of criminals in Mexico and Honduras. The smuggled guns were used to kill two American Border Patrol Agents and at least 150 Mexican citizens.

In spite of the stellar investigative reporting that exposed this scandal--the work of David Codrea of National Gun Rights Examiner, and Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars--the mainstream media has been totally silent except for Fox News. CBS News picked up the story back in March but dropped it suddenly and without explanation.

Thus, the public has been forced to rely upon lesser-known sources, such as this column and that of David Codrea, Mike Vanderboegh, Kurt Hofmann, and others. And while Fox News has done an admirable job at keeping the issue at the forefront of the news, they are but one segment of the massive mainstream media machine that routinely kills stories that put Barack Obama and his Administration in a negative light. It is no surprise, then, that with each new article this writer submits on the scandal more citizens come to the surface to state they have never heard of it. And, the details and the terms used to describe it can be rather confusing to newcomers.

To address that issue, the following is a brief timeline of events along with a clarification of commonly-used terms by those of us who regularly report these mind-boggling events.